Clock Extraction In Systems Affected By Strong Intersymbol Interference

ABSTRACT

A timing recovery apparatus for signal reception in a data transmission system comprises an equalizer to equalize a received signal and a phase detector connected after the timing recovery equalizer that generates a clock tone from absolute values of the received signal after equalization.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of International Application No.PCT/EP2018/080626, filed on Nov. 8, 2018, the disclosure of which ishereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to clockextraction in systems affected by strong intersymbol interference and,more particularly, but not exclusively, to timing in FTN PAM-n systemsand coherent QAM systems.

Next-generation ultra-high-speed short reach optical fiber links mayutilize small, cheap, and low power consumption transceivers, accordingto requirements which are generally imposed in view of the limited spaceof data center equipment. The transceivers for such short reach opticallinks may therefore be expected to support intra- and inter-data centerconnections over lengths ranging from a few hundred meters up to severaltens of kilometers, respectively.

A preferred solution is to transmit 100 Gbit/s per wavelength. Howeverthat is very challenging when a very cheap solution is required. Thecoherent approach is out of scope as it requires high power andexpensive devices. Therefore, intensity modulation (IM) and directdetection (DD) schemes are preferred. The mature on-off keyingmodulation format, widely used in non-coherent systems has also beeninvestigated for applications at 100 Gbit/s per wavelength speed.However, such a solution would require expensive high-bandwidth opticsand electronics. To overcome this drawback, advanced modulation formatssupported by digital signal processing (DSP) have been investigated asan alternative technology to support 100 Gbits/s, the most promisingcandidates being duobinary pulse amplitude modulation (DB-PAM-n),discrete multi-tone modulation (DMT), and carrier-less amplitude andphase modulation (CAP). All the aforementioned methods provide similarperformance in IMDD systems. However, the DB-PAM formats are moreattractive because they require a simple DSP.

Optical transceivers reserved for data centers may typically use cheaperkinds of components such as directly modulated lasers (DML) andelectro-absorption modulators (EML). DSP power consumption and latencyare critical and only basic DSP functions are implemented in realproducts. The power of an optical signal is almost proportional to theelectrical signal that modulates the laser. Forward-error correction(FEC) is necessary at higher data rates. Error correction codes areoften standardized but can also be proprietary.

Reference is now made to FIG. 1, which illustrates an IM-DD PAMtransmission system 10. Message bits are inserted into a forward errorcorrection unit 12, and then the bits are mapped into a PAM signal atPAM mapper 14. The PAM signal can be pre-equalized to improveperformance at equalizer 16. A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) 18outputs an analog electrical signal that is often amplified by amodulator driver (MD) 20. EML/DML output provides an optical signal fromunit 22, which may suffer from chromatic dispersion (CD) over longerlinks. Therefore, in some systems dispersion compensation fibers (DCF)or dispersion compensation modules (DCM) 24 are used to compensate forCD. At the receiver side, a photo detector/diode (PDet) 26 detects theoptical signal. The PDet output is proportional to the optical signalpower. The PDet output is amplified by using a transimpedance amplifier(TIA). PDet and TIA can be integrated in receive optical subassemblies(ROSA) that may include an automatic gain control circuit (AGC) 28 toadjust electrical signal to an analog-to-digital (ADC) 30 input whenelectronic equalization is used at equalizer 32. The receiver may use afeed-forward equalizer (FFE), a decision feed-back equalizer (DFE),and/or a maximum likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE), or combine someof them to provide equalizer 32, and then demapping of the PAMintroduced at PAM mapper 14 is carried out at PAM demapper 34. Of theequalization alternatives for equalizer 32, the FFE suffers from noiseenhancement, and the DFE suffers from error multiplication, so that theMLSE is generally regarded as the best solution, although it is also themost complex solution. At the end of the circuit, whatever technology isused to carry out PAM demapping, a hard forward error correction (FEC)device 36 is normally placed after the PAM demapper.

The simplified Rx block diagram including timing recovery blocks isshown in FIG. 2. The AGC block 28 monitors signal power variations andproduces an almost constant signal swing that fits into the ADC 30 inputrange. This way the ADC 30 is effectively used. Sampling phaseadjustment circuit (SPA) 38 is discussed below. Equalizer 32 recovers asignal suffering from noise and intersymbol interference (ISI). However,before the equalizer is activated the local oscillator 48 must be lockedto the input signal, i.e. to the transmitter oscillator responsible fordata clocking. That is to say the transmitter and local oscillators mustbe synchronized. Small phase deviations are allowed and it is impossibleto perfectly track the transmitter clock source. Clock extraction isenabled by a phase detector (PD) 42 that outputs information regardingwhether the sampling clock is faster or slower. Since the information isnoisy, suffering for example from pattern-dependent noise, noise causedby amplifiers, component imperfections, etc., the timing informationmust be filtered at filter 46 before entering/controlling the receiveroscillator, often realized as a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) 48.

Timing information can be derived from the output signal of analog todigital convertor ADC 30. The timing recovery (TR) block 44 includes PD42, low-pass filter 46 and VCO 48. VCO 48 clock phase can be adjustedusing the sampling phase adjustment (SPA) circuit 38. Sampling phaseoptimization can be also supported by the FEC decoder 36 that provides anumber of FEC input errors (number of corrected errors). The bestsampling phase should minimize the number of corrected errors.

IMDD transmission systems can be modeled as presented in FIG. 3. Thetransmitted signal x is modified by a system transfer function H—block50—that can be approximated by a linear system. In general, the systemis nonlinear. The output signal is a convolution of the signal x and thesystem pulse response h:

${y(k)} = {\sum\limits_{j = {- n}}^{n}{{x\left( {k - j} \right)}{h(j)}}}$${z(k)} = {{{y(k)} + {n(k)}} = {{\sum\limits_{j = {- n}}^{n}{{x\left( {k - j} \right)}{h(j)}}} + {n(k)}}}$

where ISI spreads the input signal over 2n+1 symbol intervals. Usually,the transfer function behaves as a low-pass filter and high frequencycomponents can be severely attenuated. An additive noise n additionallydisturbs the signal x. The TR block 52 (FIGS. 4a-4c ) thus receives asignal suffering from ISI and noise. TR designers are used to countingwith a signal that includes noise, and practical TR solutions are thusless sensitive to noise in the specified working conditions. Forexample, the design of a pre-FEC bit error rate (BER) is directlyrelated to the amount of noise that can be tolerated by the system.However, in systems using enhanced equalization techniques to cope withISI caused by strong bandwidth limitations of optical and electricalcomponents the received signal contains insufficient clock information.In such systems, all known practical TR schemes fail because thefrequency content around the Nyquist frequency is very pure.

In some applications, the DSP power consumption is limited and oftenonly one sample per symbol is available after ADC. Hence all DSP blockshave to work with the minimum number of samples per symbol, whichadditionally restricts TR design. Therefore, a Mueller and Muller phasedetector (MMPD) is used in most DSPs working with a single sample persymbol. The MMPD output for a real binary signal z is described by

PD_(out)(k)=z(k+T)sign(z(k))−z(k)sign(z(k+T))

where T denotes a symbol interval. For multilevel signals, the MMPD canuse decisions d to give:

PD_(out)(k)=z(k+T)d(k)−z(k)d(k+T)

Decisions d are generally very weak in ISI channels and the signal z isnormally equalized before the TR block.

The equalization may be carried out before the timing recovery TR block52 which may include PD 42, LPF 46, and VCO 48 as in FIG. 2. Such ascheme is shown in FIG. 4a . In many cases, the equalizer is adaptiveand may cause TR instability. Another way to extract a clock is shown inFIG. 4b in a version that might be appropriate for MMPD. When theequalizer is static then such a solution may provide acceptableperformance. As with the solution of FIG. 4a , when the equalizer isadaptive, the TR 52 and equalizer 40 together may easily bring thescheme into an unstable region. The main equalizer tap may move to thefirst or last tap position and the equalizer outputs will be distorted.The best but the most expensive solution uses a TR static equalizer 54(see FIG. 4c ). The TR equalizer 54 may use fewer taps than the mainequalizer 40. The signal after the TR equalizer 54 may be much worsethan the signal after the main equalizer, so that the MMPD may provide avery noisy clock tone.

A problem with the arrangement of FIG. 4c is how to improve the clocktone and also how to find the best taps for the TR equalizer 54.

Additional background art includes K. H. Mueller and M. S. Muller,“Timing Recovery in Digital Synchronous Data Receivers”, IEEETransactions on Communications, Vol. 24, 1976, pp. 516-531.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present embodiments may introduce a new phase detector, and analgorithm for setting the TR equalizer taps, so as to obtain a moreaccurate clock tone. The embodiments may provide a method for clockextraction in strongly bandwidth limited transmission systems and insystems with high ISI. A method according to the present embodiments mayuse simple operations with a low number of samples to recover thetransmitter clock.

According to an aspect of some embodiments of the present inventionthere is provided timing recovery apparatus for signal reception in adata transmission system, the apparatus comprising: an equalizerconfigured to equalize a received signal and to output an equalizedsignal; and a phase detector configured to receive the equalized signaland configured to generate a clock tone from absolute values of theequalized signal, wherein the clock tone provides phase information fortiming recovery.

In an embodiment, the equalized signal comprises N symbols, with N beingan integer equal or greater than 2, and wherein the phase detectorcomprises (N−1) adder, (N−1) subtractor and (N−1) multiplier for theincoming symbols to produce (N−1) symbol outputs.

An embodiment may comprise a general adder for adding together aplurality of the symbol outputs to generate a phase detector output.

In an embodiment, the adder sum up a signed part of the symbol samplesand the subtractor sum up the unsigned part of the symbol samples.

In an embodiment, the phase detector is configured to produce a k^(th)output

PD_(out)(k)=abs[z(k)+z(k+T)][abs(z(k))−abs(z(k+T))]

where T is a symbol interval, and z(k) is the incoming symbol sample.

In an embodiment, the equalizer comprises a main equalizer and a timingrecovery, TR, equalizer.

In an embodiment, the main equalizer and the TR equalizer arerespectively switchable between a PAM mode and DB PAM mode.

In an embodiment, the main equalizer is an adaptive equalizer.

In an embodiment, the TR equalizer is configured with a standardperformance setting wherein the TR equalizer operates in the same modeas the main equalizer, and an enhanced performance setting wherein theTR equalizer operates in PAM mode regardless of a mode of the mainequalizer.

In an embodiment, the main equalizer and the TR equalizer comprise tapsettings, the tap settings being updatable, and wherein the mainequalizer is configured to provide at least some of its tap settings astap updates to the TR equalizer.

In an embodiment, the main equalizer is configured to operate initiallyin PAM mode and provide a set of tap updates to the TR equalizer, andsubsequently to operate in DB-PAM mode and not to provide updates to theTR equalizer if the TR equalizer is in PAM mode.

In an embodiment, the TR equalizer is configured to use a set of defaulttap values until a first tap update is received from the main equalizer.

Embodiments may comprise a microcontroller connected to provide slow tapupdates for the TR equalizer.

In embodiments, the data transmission system comprises opticaltransmission.

In an embodiment, a transmitted signal is a PAM-n signal.

In an embodiment, a transmitted signal is a coherent QAM signal.

According to a second aspect of the present invention there is provideda timing recovery method for signal reception in a data transmissionsystem, the method comprising: equalizing a received signal; anddetecting phase and generating a clock tone using absolute values of thereceived signal after equalization.

The method may comprise carry out for each received symbol a singleaddition, a single subtraction and a single multiplication to produce asymbol output.

The method may comprise adding together a plurality of the symboloutputs to provide the phase detecting and the clock tone.

The method may comprise compensating for slow channel changes by using amicrocontroller to provide slow tap updates for the TR equalizer.

Unless otherwise defined, all technical and/or scientific terms usedherein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinaryskill in the art to which the invention pertains. Although methods andmaterials similar or equivalent to those described herein can be used inthe practice or testing of embodiments of the invention, exemplarymethods and/or materials are described below. In case of conflict, thepatent specification, including definitions, will control. In addition,the materials, methods, and examples are illustrative only and are notintended to be necessarily limiting.

Implementation of the method and/or system of embodiments of theinvention can involve hardware, software or firmware or a combinationthereof, in some cases using an operating system.

For example, hardware for performing selected tasks according toembodiments of the invention could be implemented as a chip or acircuit. As software, selected tasks according to embodiments of theinvention could be implemented as a plurality of software instructions.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Some embodiments of the invention are herein described, byway of exampleonly, with reference to the accompanying drawings. With specificreference now to the drawings in detail, it is stressed that theparticulars shown are by way of example and for purposes of illustrativediscussion of embodiments of the invention. In this regard, thedescription taken with the drawings makes apparent to those skilled inthe art how embodiments of the invention may be practiced.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a simplified diagram of a transmitter in an optical link;

FIG. 2 is a simplified diagram of a receiver in an optical link;

FIG. 3 is a simplified diagram showing a transfer function that may beused by an optical link with noise;

FIGS. 4A-4C are three different ways of connecting up a transmitter toimprove performance;

FIG. 5 is a simplified block diagram showing a device in an optical linkaccording to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a simplified block diagram showing in greater detail the phasedetection part of the device of FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 is a simplified flow chart showing a procedure for clockacquisition and setting of taps according to an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 8 is a graph showing spectra of a received quantized signal z in abandwidth-limited system that enters the equalizer, specifically,spectra of three signals, signal z prior to entering the equalizer, andtwo output signals, an e-PAM output signal and an e-DBPAM signal;

FIG. 9 is a simplified graph that illustrates timing error detectorcharacteristics (TEDC) over one unit interval (UI)/symbol period forthree different PAM formats, PAM-4, PAM-8 and PAM-16 for an embodimentof the present invention;

FIG. 10 is a graph indicating frequency f/fs against power spectraldensity PSD, and thus showing the clock tone generated by an embodimentof the present invention; and

FIG. 11 is a graph that illustrates results when 75 GBaud PAM-8experimental data are processed according to an embodiment of thepresent invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENTS

The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to clockextraction in systems affected by strong intersymbol interference and,more particularly, but not exclusively, to timing in FTN PAM-n systemsand coherent QAM systems.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a method for clockderivation in PAM-n transmission systems that are seriously degraded byISI caused by bandwidth limitations of system electrical and opticalcomponents. Certain of the present embodiments may provide one or moreof the following benefits:

1. A phase detector according to the present embodiments may use onesample per symbol that enables clock extraction at very high baud rateswith very low complexity.2. Embodiments may require just two adders and a multiplier per symbol.Additionally, the sample sign may be ignored.3. A phase detector according to the present embodiments may enabletiming in high-speed systems where the PAM-n signal is equalized. Thephase detector may use either its own short pre-equalizer or take theoutputs from the main equalizer where the phase detector sampling phaseis carefully handled to avoid unstable behavior.4. The phase detector may be modified and used in other systems such ase.g. coherent QAM systems.

For purposes of better understanding some embodiments of the presentinvention, as illustrated in FIGS. 5-11 of the drawings, reference hasalready been made in the background to the construction and operation ofan existing transmitter and receiver system as illustrated in FIGS. 1-4c.

Before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail, itis to be understood that the invention is not necessarily limited in itsapplication to the details of construction and the arrangement of thecomponents and/or methods set forth in the following description and/orillustrated in the drawings and/or the Examples. The invention iscapable of other embodiments or of being practiced or carried out invarious ways.

In strongly bandwidth-limited systems the signal spectrum at highfrequencies is very weak, although the signal at these frequencies canbe recovered by equalization. Also, a system can control ISI so that theequalizer output may have more levels than the transmitted signal. Oneexample is duobinary transmission. In duobinary systems, the PAM-Nsignal has 2N−1 levels after equalization. This signal has a weakhigh-frequency content but it can be used in a suitable TR algorithm toextract clock tone. Extracting clock tone can also be done by theMueller and Muller phase detector MMPD. However, the MMPD may generate astrong self-jitter.

Referring now to FIG. 5, a simplified block diagram of a timing recoverydevice is shown, that uses a timing recovery equalizer for signalreception in an optical data transmission system according to thepresent embodiments.

In FIG. 5, numeral 62 indicates the timing recovery equalizer andnumeral 60 indicates a phase detector. The output of the phase detector60 is filtered by a filter 64 and the filtered output provides the inputto local oscillator VCO 66 to produce the clock tone of FIG. 10.

As shown in FIG. 5, the signal arrives at ADC 56 and the output of theADC is fed to PAM-DBPAM main equalizer 58. Phase detector 60 uses thesignal from the timing recovery (TR) equalizer 62. The TR equalizer 62may be simpler than the main equalizer 58. The main 58 and TR 62equalizers may work in either or both of two modes PAM and DB PAM. Whenthe main equalizer 58 works in the PAM mode the TR equalizer 62 may alsowork in the PAM mode. However, when the main equalizer 58 works in theDB PAM mode the TR equalizer 62 may work in either mode, and it is notedthat the PAM mode generates less jitter.

On the other hand, in time varying channels the main equalizer 58 trackschannel changes and these changes may be periodically applied in the TRequalizer, by changing equalizer taps. The TR tap updates may requiresome care so as not to destabilize the system, and specifically, aproblem arises from the fact that if the main equalizer 58 works in theDB PAM mode, the TR equalizer taps cannot be updated in the PAM mode.Thus, in the case of time-varying channels it is recommended that thetwo equalizers work in the same mode. Dotted arrow 68 indicates thatmain equalizer 58 may set the mode of TR equalizer 62 and may providetap updates.

Equalizer 58, 62 may equalize a received signal and output an equalizedsignal. The equalizer may comprise two equalizer parts or two equalizersconnected together via a control connection 68. Equalizer 58 is a mainequalizer and equalizer 62 is a timing recovery equalizer.

The control connection 68 allows the main equalizer to set a mode and/orset taps for the timing recovery equalizer.

A phase detector 60 may receive the equalized signal from the timingrecovery equalizer 62 and generate a clock tone from absolute values ofthe equalized signal. The clock tone thus provides phase information fortiming recovery.

Reference is now made to FIG. 6, which is a simplified block diagram ofan implementation on an ASIC of a timing recovery and phase detectionpart of the device of FIG. 5. In ASIC 70, data are processed in blocksof N symbols in parallel so as to achieve the Baud rate. Therefore, NPDs72 are executed in a single ASIC clock cycle. The TR filter 74 and VCO76 are clocked using the ASIC clock. The PD shown in greater detail asinsert 78 has a signed region 80 where two neighboring samples aresummed at summers 84. In unsigned part 82, the data sign is irrelevant,and one subtraction, at subtractor 86, and multiplication, atmultipliers 88, are executed. Later, N outputs are summed up at summer90 and fed into the TR filter 74 to smooth the sampling phasevariations.

Thus the device may have N−1 phase detectors 72 and subsequent branchingincluding adders and multipliers. The main equalizer may easily havebetween 30 and 200 taps, and may adapt to current situations. The outputcontains the reconstructed signal.

The TR equalizer may have say five taps, and in embodiments these maytake on default values which are not changed. If the taps in the TRequalizer were to change then the signal after the main equalizer maybecome unstable, as discussed above, so it is easier to keep the TR tapsfixed and carry out the changes at the main equalizer. The defaultvalues may for example be set at the factory, or an alternative is totake five taps from the main equalizer to acquire the clock. Such aprocedure need only be performed once.

In FIG. 6, the equalized signal is made up of, or to be more precisedealt with in blocks of, N symbols, with N being an integer equal orgreater than 2. The phase detector, 60, 72, comprises (N−1) adders 84,(N−1) subtractor 86, and (N−1) multipliers 88 for the incoming symbolsto produce (N−1) symbol outputs. Typically one sample per symbol istaken.

A general adder 90 may add together the symbol outputs to generate aphase detector output.

The adders 84 may sum up a signed part 80 of the symbol samples, whereasthe subs tractors 86 may sum up the unsigned part 82 of the symbolsamples.

The phase detector is configured to produce a k^(th) output

PD_(out)(k)=abs[z(k)+z(k+T)][abs(z(k))−abs(z(k+T))]

where T is a symbol interval, and z(k) is the symbol sample after the TRequalizer.

As discussed above, the equalizer comprises a main equalizer and atiming recovery, TR, equalizer.

In embodiments the main equalizer 58 and the TR equalizer 62 are eachswitched between a PAM mode and DB PAM mode. Furthermore, the mainequalizer 58 may be an adaptive equalizer. The TR equalizer may have astandard performance setting wherein the TR equalizer operates in thesame mode as the main equalizer, and an enhanced performance settingwherein the TR equalizer operates in PAM mode regardless of the mode ofthe main equalizer. The control connection 68 ensures that the TRequalizer may be set by the main equalizer to the appropriate mode.

The main equalizer 58 and the TR equalizer 72 may each have tap settingswhich are updated. As mentioned above, the main equalizer 58 may provideat least some of its tap settings as tap updates to the TR equalizer viathe control connection 68.

More particularly, the main equalizer 58 may operate initially in PAMmode and provide a set of tap updates to the TR equalizer 62.Subsequently the main equalizer may operate in DB-PAM mode and at thispoint cease to provide updates to the TR equalizer if the TR equalizeris in PAM mode. However it may continue to provide updates if both areoperating in DB-PAM mode.

The TR equalizer may initialize with a set of default tap values whichit may continue to use until a first tap update is received from themain equalizer.

The timing recovery apparatus may include a microcontroller connected toprovide slow tap updates for the TR equalizer.

The data transmission system may be an optical transmission system.

The transmitted signal may for example be a PAM-n signal, or a coherentQAM signal.

Reference is now made to FIG. 7, which illustrates a starting procedurefor detection according to the present embodiments, according to whichthe taps in the TR equalizer may be set and updated. When enhancedtiming recovery (TR) performance is required but the main equalizerhappens to be operating in the DB PAM mode, the starting procedure maygo through the following procedure:

The starting/default TR equalizer taps are used to acquire 100 theclock. When the TR works well, that is the clock has been acquired 102,the main equalizer starts updates in the PAM mode 104.

The TR equalizer may have less taps than the main equalizer. In thiscase, the main equalizer may at this point use the same number of tapsas the TR equalizer.

After channel acquiring 106, the main equalizer sends its tap values tothe TR equalizer 108.

Once the taps are updated at the TR equalizer, the TR equalizer worksfor some time to accommodate to new conditions 110.

When the clock is stable the main equalizer switches to the DB mode 112and does taps updates. The TR equalizer taps are not updated from thispoint onwards from the main equalizer.

Thus a stable transmission situation is arrived at, and from now on,slow updates may be carried out 114, for example using a microcontroller that tracks slow channel changes such as temperature, agingetc. The slow changes may be carried out with due care in order to keepthe system stable.

As shown in FIG. 7, the present embodiments may provide a recoverymethod for signal reception in a data transmission system. A receivedsignal is equalized, and a phase of the equalized signal is detected togenerate a clock tone. The clock tone may use absolute values of thereceived signal after equalization.

The method may involve sampling the received signals and carrying outfor each received symbol a single addition, a single subtraction and asingle multiplication to produce a symbol output.

The method may involve adding together a plurality of symbol outputs toprovide the phase detection and thus obtain the clock tone.

The phase detecting may comprise producing a k^(tt) output:

PD_(out)(k)=abs[z(k)+z(k+T)][abs(z(k))−abs(z(k+T))]

where T is a symbol interval, and z(k) is the incoming symbol sample.

Reference is now made to FIG. 8, which is a graph showing a spectrum ofa received quantized signal z in a bandwidth-limited system that entersthe equalizer. Specifically, FIG. 8 shows spectra of three signals,signal z prior to entering the equalizer, and two output signals, ane-PAM output signal and an e-DBPAM signal. The signal z is thusequalized by two types of equalizers. The first one delivers a PAMsignal (e-PAM) while the second one outputs DB PAM signal (e-DB PAM). Inthis case, because the first (e-PAM) equalizer enhances the noise athigh frequencies the DB PAM signal may provide better bit error rate(BER) performance. However, the TR performance is better with a PAMreconstructed signal, and indeed it is known that the performance ofsome PDs decreases as the number of PAM levels increases. Also, MMPDPAM8 performance is worse than MMPD PAM4 performance. Additionally, theMMPD without decisions, meaning where only a sign is used, can causeunstable hang up regions. More particularly, a sampling phase may trackover some period of time in such an unstable region and later reach astable sampling point. Thus allows one to simply use the unstable regioninstead of stopping. To explain consider the graph of TEDC in FIG. 9,and assume that the TEDC from 0.2 to 0.8 is almost zero. If an incomingsample is at say a sampling point close to 0.4 it will take some time tobring the sampling phase to the position 0, where 0 is a stable samplingpoint. Without this unstable hang up region the TR would rapidly bringthe sampling point from the position 0.4 to 0.

The present embodiments use a phase detector whose output is describedby

PD_(out)(k)=abs[z(k)+z(k+T)][abs(z(k))−abs(z(k+T))]

where T denotes a symbol period. The equation uses an absolute valuefunction—abs—in order to extract the timing. The input signal is at orclose to the Nyquist frequency and the absolute value function makes thefrequency more distinct and allows amplification of the frequencycontaining the timing. The timing information according to the presentformula is extracted from a single current sample. Prior art systemshave attempted to use squaring or fourth powers but have used summingbased on other samples, thus complicating the circuitry and addingjitter.

Reference is now made to FIG. 9, which is a simplified graph thatillustrates timing error detector characteristics (TEDC) over one unitinterval (UI)/symbol period for three different PAM formats, PAM-4,PAM-8 and PAM-16. The signal power is normalized to 1. One can see thatTEDC barely depends on the PAM format, the three different PAM formatsall giving practically the same response. The function is symmetricaland has a sinusoidal shape. The TEDC does not have hang up regions.

The phase detector of the present embodiments generates a clock tonesuch as indicated in FIG. 10 which is a graph indicating frequency f/fsagainst power spectral density PSD. The ratio of clock tone to noise isimproved compared to the MMPD by several dBs, depending on noise andsystem transfer function. In channels with strong ISI and when a TRequalizer is used, the phase detector of the present embodiments mayprovide improved performance compared to some known PDs based either onsingle or two samples per symbol.

Reference is now made to FIG. 11, which illustrates results when 75GBaud PAM-8 experimental data are processed (IMDD setup). A 21-tap FFEwas used for TR pre-equalization. The TR loop was set to 4 MHz. Samplingphase variations for the PD of the present embodiments and by comparisonwith the prior art MMPD are shown. The maximum sampling variations aredoubled by the MMPD and they are more than 0.1 UI (Jpp-jitterpeak-to-peak). On the other hand, the PD of the present embodimentsshows variations that do not cross 0.05 UI (Jpp).

It is expected that during the life of a patent maturing from thisapplication many relevant optical channel technologies, equalizationschemes and noise reduction schemes will be developed, and channel ratesand Baud rates will increase, and the scopes of the terms and ratesgiven herein are intended to include all such new technologies a priori.

The terms “comprises”, “comprising”, “includes”, “including”, “having”and their conjugates mean “including but not limited to”.

The term “consisting of” means “including and limited to”.

As used herein, the singular form “a”, “an” and “the” include pluralreferences unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.

It is appreciated that certain features of the invention, which are, forclarity, described in the context of separate embodiments, may also beprovided in combination in a single embodiment, and the text is to beconstrued as if such a single embodiment is explicitly written out indetail. Conversely, various features of the invention, which are, forbrevity, described in the context of a single embodiment, may also beprovided separately or in any suitable subcombination or as suitable inany other described embodiment of the invention, and the text is to beconstrued as if such separate embodiments or subcombinations areexplicitly set forth herein in detail.

Certain features described in the context of various embodiments are notto be considered essential features of those embodiments, unless theembodiment is inoperative without those elements.

Although the invention has been described in conjunction with specificembodiments thereof, it is evident that many alternatives, modificationsand variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art.Accordingly, it is intended to embrace all such alternatives,modifications and variations that fall within the spirit and broad scopeof the appended claims.

All publications, patents and patent applications mentioned in thisspecification are herein incorporated in their entirety by referenceinto the specification, to the same extent as if each individualpublication, patent or patent application was specifically andindividually indicated to be incorporated herein by reference. Inaddition, citation or identification of any reference in thisapplication shall not be construed as an admission that such referenceis available as prior art to the present invention. To the extent thatsection headings are used, they should not be construed as necessarilylimiting.

What is claimed is:
 1. An apparatus, comprising: an equalizer,configured to: equalize a received signal, to form an equalized signal;and output an equalized signal; and a phase detector, configured to:receive the equalized signal; and generate a clock tone from absolutevalues of the equalized signal, wherein the clock tone provides phaseinformation for timing recovery.
 2. The apparatus of claim 1, whereinthe equalized signal comprises N symbols, N is an integer equal orgreater than 2, and wherein the phase detector comprises an (N−1) adder,an (N−1) subtractor, and an (N−1) multiplier, and the (N−1) adder, the(N−1) subtractor, and the (N−1) multiplier are configured to produce(N−1) symbol outputs by performing an addition, a subtraction, and amultiplication on each symbol of the N symbols.
 3. The apparatus ofclaim 2, further comprising: a general adder, configured to add togethera plurality of symbol outputs of the (N−1) symbol outputs, to generate aphase detector output.
 4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein the (N−1)adder is configured to sum up a signed part of symbol samples of the Nsymbols, and the (N−1) subtractor is configured to sum up an unsignedpart of the symbol samples.
 5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein thephase detector is configured to produce a k^(th) output PD_(out)(k)according to the following relation:PD_(out)(k)=abs[z(k)+z(k+T)][abs(z(k))−abs(z(k+T))] where T is a symbolinterval, and z(k) is the incoming symbol sample.
 6. The apparatus ofclaim 1, wherein the equalizer comprises a main equalizer and a timingrecovery (TR) equalizer.
 7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the mainequalizer and the TR equalizer are respectively switchable between apulse amplitude modulation (PAM) mode and a duobinary pulse amplitudemodulation (DB PAM) mode.
 8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the mainequalizer is an adaptive equalizer.
 9. The apparatus of claim 8, whereinthe TR equalizer is configured with a standard performance settingwherein the TR equalizer operates in a same mode as the main equalizer,and the TR equalizer is further configured with an enhanced performancesetting wherein the TR equalizer operates in PAM mode independently of amode of the main equalizer.
 10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein themain equalizer and the TR equalizer are configured to determine tapsettings, the tap settings are updatable, and wherein the main equalizeris configured to provide at least some of the tap settings as tapupdates to the TR equalizer.
 11. A method, comprising: equalizing, by anequalizer, a received signal, to form an equalized signal; and detectinga phase and generating a clock tone, by a phase detector, using absolutevalues of the equalized signal.
 12. The method of claim 11, furthercomprising: for each symbol of the equalized signal, performing a singleaddition, a single subtraction, and a single multiplication, to producea symbol output.
 13. The method of claim 12, further comprising: addingtogether a plurality of the symbol outputs, to provide a phase detectoroutput and the clock tone.
 14. The method of claim 11, wherein the phasedetecting comprises producing a k^(th) output PD_(out)(k) according tothe following relation:PD_(out)(k)=abs[z(k)+z(k+T)][abs(z(k))−abs(z(k+T))] where T is a symbolinterval, and z(k) is the incoming symbol sample.
 15. The method ofclaim 11, wherein the equalizing comprises main equalizing and timingrecovery (TR) equalizing.
 16. The method of claim 15, wherein the mainequalizing and the TR equalizing are respectively performed in a pulseamplitude modulation (PAM) mode or a duobinary pulse amplitudemodulation (DB PAM) mode.
 17. The method of claim 16, wherein the mainequalizing is performed adaptively.
 18. The method of claim 17, whereinthe TR equalizing is performed using a standard setting for operating ina same mode as the main equalizing, or is performed using an enhancedperformance setting for operating in PAM mode independently of a mode ofthe main equalizing.
 19. The method of claim 18, wherein the mainequalizing and the TR equalizing respectively use taps, each tap has arespective tap setting, and the method comprises providing at least sometap settings from the main equalizing as tap updates to the TRequalizing.
 20. The method of claim 19, wherein: in a first time periodthe main equalizing is initially performed in PAM mode and provides aset of tap updates to the TR equalizing; and in a second time period themain equalizing operates in DB-PAM mode and the TR equalizing operatesin PAM mode, and the main equalizing no longer provides tap updates tothe TR equalizing.